Tuesday reader's view: An omission

By the Midland Daily News

Published
8:22 am EDT, Tuesday, October 4, 2011

To the editor:

Last week I traveled to Midland to visit Voices: Extraordinary Women of Midland County. It was a fine retrospective, well displayed and interesting, but I was shocked to find that Rose Collamer Bauman (1920-2004) was not included. She was certainly extraordinary! In fact, she probably mentored many of the women achievers included in the exhibit, as she mentored me when I joined the SVSU faculty.

Irony of ironies, Rose herself devoted her entire professional life to encouraging women to realize their potential. As the founder of SVSU's Chrysallis Center for Continuing Education, she presented hundreds of programs which helped non-traditional students to start college work and counseled hundreds of women as they made what was then sometimes a big leap from kitchen to classroom. A lifelong feminist, Rose was instrumental in founding the Michigan Women's Historical Center in Lansing in 1973 and served on its board for many, many years. Perhaps better than most other faculty, she bridged the classroom and the community, particularly in community project benefiting women.

She would have loved this exhibit and delighted in seeing her many friends recognized for their achievements. Her omission marred an otherwise very good tribute to the women of Midland.